Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/294

 to which softly-toned and simply-decorated ware it is no more like than is a Henri Deux tazza to a Limoges garden-stool. Kinkozan turns out also a coarse shippoyaki, or cloisonneé enamel, some on faience and some on copper ground; and the blue-and-white-gowned young man will lead one past garden and godown, and show one every stage and process of the manufacture of the different wares. The potters sit in little open alcoves of rooms, each with his low wheel and heap of clay before him. One old man sits with his feet doubled up before him, his right foot locked fast in the bend of the left knee, and the left foot laid sole upward on the right thigh, in the impossible attitude of so many Buddhas. This position he maintains with comfort for hours, and this lean, bald-headed, old man, wearing nothing but a loin-cloth and a pair of huge, round, owlish spectacles, is as interesting as his work. He puts a handful of wet gray clay on the wheel before him, making it revolve with a dexterous touch of the hand, while he works the lump of clay into a thick, broad bowl. With his fingers and a few little sticks he soon stretches the bowl upward, narrows it for a neck, broadens and flattens it a little at the top, and presently lifts off a graceful vase and sets it on a board with a row of others. In another place the workmen are grinding and working the clay; in another, preparing the glaze and applying it, and near them are the kilns in every stage. In a further garden the decorators are at work, each with his box of brushes and colors beside him, the vase being kept in half-horizontal position before him by a wooden rest. Each piece goes from one man to another, beginning with the one who sketches the designs in faint outline, thence passing to him who does the faces, to a third who applies the red, to a fourth who touches in the diaper-work and traceries, and so on to the man who liberally bestows the gilding. Lastly, two women slowly 278